Pennsylvania capital punishment delay no big deal

The sedative midazolam is used in executions in Oklahoma. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf last week placed a moratorium on the death penalty pending a review of his state's capital punishment policies.

The sedative midazolam is used in executions in Oklahoma. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf last week placed a moratorium on the death penalty pending a review of his state's capital punishment policies. (AP FIle Photo)

As we consider Gov. Tom Wolf's decision to impose a moratorium on the death penalty pending some further study, we ought to keep a few things in mind.

First, this was one of his campaign promises. Wolf won the election, and whatever you think of his agenda, he's earned the right to pursue it — in his case with a lot more energy and clarity than his inept predecessor ever demonstrated. I was particularly pleased to see him discard Tom Corbett's wacky alternative to Medicare expansion in favor of a traditional plan to extend health insurance to hundreds of thousands of low-income Pennsylvanians, another of his pledges now fulfilled.

Second, no one has been executed in Pennsylvania in this century, and only three people — all of whom had given up their right to further appeals — in the almost 40 years since the death penalty was reimposed in 1976. Tom Corbett supported the death penalty, and we didn't execute anybody in his four years.

So let's not wring our hands too violently. As a practical matter, Wolf's decision doesn't mean much of anything, at least in the short term. Moratorium or no, we don't execute anybody. If he wants to put the system on hold so it can be re-examined and perhaps improved, why not?

That said, my opinion about the death penalty hasn't changed since I expressed my disgust with Gov. Robert P. Casey more than 20 years ago for failing to obey a law passed by Pennsylvania's elected representatives, signed into law by its governor and applied in good faith by Pennsylvania juries ever since it was reinstated. At the time, I was frustrated that despicable local murderers Martin Appel and Josoph Henry still were sitting on death row and that Casey was fighting to ensure no one was executed under his watch because it didn't agree with his personal views.

I understand that the death penalty arouses strong opposition, driven by people's religious views, potential racial bias and other unfairness in sentencing and the certain knowledge that people have been executed and later found to be innocent as DNA and other evidence emerged. Although I support the death penalty for the most heinous murders, I wouldn't even consider it in any case where there was the slightest doubt of the killer's identity.

Wolf argues that Pennsylvania's system is "error prone, expensive and anything but infallible" and that he wants to await the report of a legislative commission that has been studying this for four years.

"If we are to continue to administer the death penalty, we must take further steps to ensure that defendants have appropriate counsel at every stage of their prosecution, that the sentence is applied fairly and proportionally, and that we eliminate the risk of executing an innocent," Wolf wrote, to the consternation of some Republican politicians who jumped at the chance to demonstrate how tough they are on the most hated criminals.

Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the guy who for years has buried statute of limitations bills that would enable more victims of child sex abuse to name their attackers and seek justice, excelled in this regard with his statement, which asked:

"Should a person like Eric Frein, if convicted of the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Bryon Dickson and of seriously wounding Trooper Alex Douglass, be given the chance to live?"

Frein hasn't even gone on trial yet, and already he's the poster boy for lethal injections? Talk about pandering.

On the flip side, state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, used the occasion to reintroduce his bill to abolish the death penalty. Certainly some supporters of Wolf's decision are hoping that the study will spur support for removing Pennsylvania from the ranks of death penalty states.

I don't know if all Wolf's criticisms are valid, but even supporters of the death penalty would have to agree that this system isn't working the way they want it to. It's an incredibly expensive, time-consuming way not to execute anyone, and if the goal is to give closure to the families of victims, it has the opposite effect.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, who sued Gov. Robert C. Casey in 1994 to enforce the death penalty against Martin D. Appel and Josoph Henry, said he is disappointed that Wolf refused to meet with prosecutors and did not respond to a letter rebutting his position.

The state district attorneys said in a prepared statement, "He has rejected the decisions of juries that wrestled with the facts and the law before unanimously imposing the death penalty, disregarded a long line of decisions made by Pennsylvania and federal judges, ignored the will of the Legislature, and ultimately turned his back on the silenced victims of cold-blooded killers."

If it turns out this is just a pretext for blocking the use of the death penalty while Wolf is in office, I'm with them. As with Casey, it is not proper or lawful for Wolf to impose his own opposition to capital punishment on a state in which it is the law and unlikely to be overturned.

But if the system can be improved, let's do it. It's not working very well.